Sherry Tipps-Holder, a world history teacher at Carl Stuart Middle School, recently returned from a two-week trip to Saudi Arabia, where she studied education and connected with the culture. Although Tipps-Holder said she learned quite a bit from this enlightening trip with a group of educators from across the U.S., she said the most important thing she brought back is a need to educate students on Saudi society.
"The biggest thing I took away is what most Westerners know about Middle Eastern culture and society would fit quite nicely in a thimble," Tipps-Holder said Friday. "We're ignorant, and if there's ever going to be a be hope for international communication and peace in the world, we must become more geographically literate. We live very much in a global society and this was hammered home to me during this trip."
According to Tipps-Holder, the thing that fascinated her most about the intensive teaching institute was watching the country's interplay between religion and tradition.
"It's not the same thing, but sometimes the line is very blurred," Tipps-Holder said. "It's a country of great contrast and the biggest challenge is how to balance the need for change and yet stay true to the tenets of Islam."
From speaking with veiled women on city streets to visiting with students in preparatory schools, Tipps-Holder said the people of Saudi Arabia were just as curious about Americans as she was about them.
"Most of the people I talked to had a burning question and it was whether Americans think all Saudis are terrorists," Tipps-Holder said. "We explained to them absolutely not and that terrorism knows no geographic boundaries."
She said the residents were also curious about how Americans feel about President-elect Barack Obama and other political figureheads. Tipps-Holder added she was even interviewed for a local newspaper about President George W. Bush's recent shoe-throwing incident.
The trip, which was sponsored by the Institute of International Education in Washington, D.C. and funded by the Arabian/American Oil Company, allowed the teachers to not only visit with locals about the culture, but traverse the entire country from east to west.
"We had an opportunity to swim in the Red Sea and go shopping in a traditional market and even do the typical thing most Westerners think Saudi Arabia is all about riding camels on sand dunes in the desert," Tipps-Holder said. "We ended up playing in the sand like a bunch of children and it was so fun."
Although cultural and religious differences like waking up before sunrise every morning for prayer are a sharp contrast for the American visiting Saudi Arabia, Tipps-Holder said a closer view showed some similarities, too.
"Even though women were veiled you would see them doing very typical things with their families, things that I would see happening with families on the city streets of the United States," Tipps-Holder said. "And one of the best experiences I had personally was visiting the women's section of an institution of higher learning between classes. They were just laughing and giggling and they had their computers out to prepare for their next class, just like you would see young ladies doing in the U.S."
Aside from being immersed in another culture and having her own learning experiences, Tipps-Holder said part of her responsibility is also to spread what she's learned through the community.
And she already has plans to get that ball rolling.
"In the next few months, I'll be doing a photographic exhibit of my trip to Saudi Arabia in certain locations around Conway, hosting speaking engagements and developing some curriculum for schools in Arkansas to dispel some myths and help teachers teacher their students better," Tipps-Holder said.
According to Tipps-Holder, she is anxious to return to school Tuesday and share her trip with her history students. She said she hopes what she learned overseas will help stress to the young students the importance of knowing about other cultures.
"Human and cultural geography has to be stressed in American public schools," Tipps-Holder said. "We know very little about other cultures in the world and that can affect us politically and economically."
(Staff writer Jessica Bauer can be reached by e-mail at jessica.bauer@thecabin.net or by phone at 505-1236. To comment on this and other stories in the Log Cabin, log on to www.thecabin.net. Send us your news at www.thecabin.net/submit)
